NCUA Merger Assistance Revealed In Corporate One Financials

The $2.2 billion Corporate One FCU’s year-end financials reveal a $4.35 million net profit, fortified net worth and the revelation that the NCUA provided $15 million worth of assistance to merge in the $1.5 billion Southeast Corporate FCU, which was effective July 1, 2012.

“The assistance provided was in the form of cash and a conditional indemnification agreement to cover losses on certain assets acquired by Corporate One,” the Columbus, Ohio-based institution said in its financial report, posted on its website.

The financial reports go on to state that per NCUA regulations, intangible assets in excess of one half percent of moving daily average net assets must be deducted from a corporate’s adjusted core capital.

Over the next eight years, the NCUA will allow Corporate One to add back the adjustment to core capital for any excess intangibles related to core deposits.

Corporate One President/CEO Lee Butke said he could not comment on the NCUA’s merger assistance, but did say the merger triggered required purchase accounting, as opposed to the “pooling” accounting rules in the past, and created the intangible assets and deduction from capital ratios.

Adding back the balance of intangible assets that exceed .5% of average assets changed leverage ratios only 0.15%, he said.

As of Dec. 31, 2012, Corporate One’s retained earnings ratio was 0.87%, its interim leverage ratio was 6.54% and its total risk based capital ratio was 20.03%, all above NCUA requirements.

“These numbers are all very strong compared to any corporate and are strong in terms of regulatory measures,” Butke said.

Corporate One also passed the liquidity stress testing with flying colors as of 2012 year end. In both the base scenario and a 300 basis points increase in rates, the corporate’s net economic value ratio exceeded 4%, more than double the required 2%.

This represents a significant increase over 2011 year end numbers, which were just slightly above 2% after the 300 basis points stress test, according to the financials available on the corporate’s website.

Interestingly, the financial reports said that because Net Economic Value incorporates unrealized losses on the corporate’s securities categorized as “available for sale” due to uncertainty regarding liquidity and credit, it isn’t as effective a tool to measure interest rate risk.

“Currently, the NEV and NEV ratio are more reflective of market/spread risk,” the corporate said in its financial report. “Throughout this time, the fundamentals of how we manage interest rate risk have not changed.”

The addition of new capital from the merger and perpetual contributed capital raised by Southeast Corporate prior to the merger increased NEV, as did significant improvements in the fair values of securities in 2012, the corporate said.

Following the NCUA’s collection of toxic legacy assets from corporates and improvements in the securities market, the difference between Corporate One’s book value and fair values is much smaller than during the height of the financial crisis: $436.7 million for book value versus $403 million in fair value as of December 31.

The Southeast Corporate merger did add more mortgage backed securities to Corporate One’s portfolio, but the book value is just 10% of the corporate’s total investable portfolio.

Securities with ratings below A- represent the majority of the portfolio, some $318 million worth, with $143 million supported by near-prime collateral and nearly $100 million supported by sub-prime. Another $86 million in MBS are less-risky agency securities.